


The Little Things

by Griddlebone



Category: Power Rangers Jungle Fury
Genre: Developing Friendships, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:36:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griddlebone/pseuds/Griddlebone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything had changed the day Fran walked through the door and into JKP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Little Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rivulet027](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivulet027/gifts).



From the time she was a little girl, Fran had spent more time living between the pages of books than she had in the real world. Although she had been bookish and awkward around people ever since she could remember, it wasn't because she didn't like people… it was because the worlds in her books were so much more interesting than the real world. It was because books accepted her no matter how awkward she was. In her books, she read about grand adventures and deep friendships, even great loves. Of course, she also read more than her fair share of nonfiction, but it was the adventure stories that had a special place in her heart.

Books were magical. Books made anything possible.

Books made her feel that maybe she could go out there into the real world and be okay even if she never learned not to be quite so awkward.

But nothing in any of her books had prepared her for the reality of life at Jungle Karma Pizza.

It had seemed so innocent at first, the charming new pizza shop in town, with its great (if unusual) food. And the proprietor with his disarming smile and unique view of the world…

If she had to admit it, it was RJ that had kept her coming to JKP after that first visit. To most people, Fran was invisible. She was quiet and easily frightened and perfectly happy to be overlooked. But when RJ looked at her, he saw _Fran_ , awkward gawky bookishness and all. And that didn't bother him at all. He still saw an interesting person, a kindred spirit, and he made it clear from the day he met her that he wanted to get to know that person.

He was the first person outside her family that really wanted to talk to her at all. And at first that had terrified her so much that she almost hadn't gone back to JKP. But RJ's kindness (and his reassuring quirkiness) had stuck with her, and sure enough, she'd come back the next time she was in the mood for pizza. Over the next few weeks, she got to know RJ better and came to feel more comfortable at the shop. It hadn't been long before stopping at JKP for pizza and a chat with RJ was a daily ritual. JKP had become her home away from home. Slowly but surely, she'd been learning how to belong.

A booming sound from somewhere forced her out of her silly daydream of days past and back into reality. What had happened to the days of happy, quiet ritual? She missed those days.

Fran fanned smoke away from the oven and withdrew the pizza that someone had forgotten there at some point earlier in the evening. They'd closed up shop on time, and when the others went up to the loft for the night, Fran stuck around to poke around in the kitchen and clean things up a bit. In all the bustle of closing time, it had been easy to assume someone else would see to the oven.

She wasn't sure who had forgotten their pizza or whose job it had been to deal with the oven, and shrugged it off because in the end it didn't matter. No real harm had been done, and her coworkers all had plenty of other things to worry about anyway. And since her coworkers were secretly superheroes and also her friends, Fran did her best to let all the little annoying slip-ups slide. Superheroes had a lot to worry about. Keeping everything in running order at "home base" was the least she could do to help them save the world.

At first she had been annoyed when more and more work ended up heaped on her shoulders and her coworkers ran out on her more often than they stuck around to finish a shift. That had all seemed so serious at the time, and she'd been proud of herself for standing up to Casey and Lily and Theo.

Now that she knew the truth about their sudden absences, she didn't mind so much if she had to put in some extra effort around the shop. Keeping things clean and tidy, keeping the kitchen stocked with the ingredients for even the wackiest pizzas, coming up with ideas for new pizzas, making sure the till added up properly… It was a lot for just one person to keep track of, but it didn't make her feel upset and used anymore.

It made her feel useful.

Sometimes she volunteered to help out in other ways, like running errands for RJ, and sometimes she just helped without asking when she saw a need for it. She'd straightened up the loft more times than she could remember. She'd even done the laundry on occasion, when it was really slow at the shop and she knew her friends could use the extra help. Tonight she would clean up burned and exploded pizza without complaining and without bringing it up to anybody, because burned pizza was the least of their worries. And tomorrow it would be something else, and that would be okay, too.

A few weeks ago, Fran would have been annoyed by all this, because all the time she spent helping out was time she could have spent reading one of her books.

But she'd come a long way since then, she thought happily in spite of the soot that clung to her after hauling that charred pizza out of the oven. Everything had changed the day she walked through the door and into JKP.

Here, she had found a place to belong. But more than that, she'd found _friends_. She'd found a whole group of people that liked her and appreciated the effort she put in to help them.

And she was reminded of that immediately, because they all came rushing down from the loft. They must have heard the pizza when it blew up, she realized.

"Is everything okay, Fran?" Lily asked.

"We smelled smoke," Casey added.

Theo remained silent, but Fran could see that he was every bit as concerned for her as Lily and Casey were.

She smiled. Even without RJ around, she felt totally at ease with the three of them. Not that long ago, she never would have believed such a thing could be possible. "Everything's fine!" she promised cheerfully. Tendrils of smoke still rose from the oven, but the situation was well in hand. At least as far as Fran was concerned. "Someone just forgot a pizza in the oven when we closed and it… didn't handle the heat well," she explained. "But it's okay now. The pizza's out, the oven's off, everything's safe and sound. Nothing to worry about!"

She realized she was babbling again, despite all her efforts at being less awkward. But that was okay, too.

Because these were her friends. They cared about her, quirks and all.

And she cared about them, too. Although she still couldn't quite tell them that in so many words without feeling mortally embarrassed and awkward, she showed it everyday by taking care of the little things.

And the best part was, they understood.


End file.
